I bet that if we see a v2 Mini it'll be virtually identical to the original just with slightly different styling to match the Roamio and maybe RF for the remote. I'm betting we're 2+ years away from a major hardware revision.

Yeah. The current one is UGLY. Oh well, it works. On their current development cycles, we're about 3 years away... In the mean time, I'll be enjoying mine.

Is the Mini remote the same as the basic Premiere remote? I have an XL4, so I have the Glo remote. I can't track of the bazillion different versions of the peanut...

It just... is. The shape of it. Couldn't they make a squarish box? Ok, it's not THAT bad, but it's still kind of ugly.

You would rather it be perfectly square? That sounds boring to me. I think the angled sides give it more style. If you want to see what an ugly set-top box looks like, you should have seen my old TWC cable box. Now those things are UGLY.

I just meant something small enough to plug directly into the HDMI port and that draws power from USB. (or from HDMI) If it used an RF remote and just had one coax port for MoCa that would be enough for most people. I know TiVo is pretty much stuck with Broadcom chipsets, so it's probably all down to how small they can make their chips. Unless they converted to using DLNA CVP-2 for streaming instead. Then they could do the UI in HTML5 and the dingoe wouldn't need much orocessing power at all.

I just meant something small enough to plug directly into the HDMI port and that draws power from USB. (or from HDMI) If it used an RF remote and just had one coax port for MoCa that would be enough for most people. I know TiVo is pretty much stuck with Broadcom chipsets, so it's probably all down to how small they can make their chips. Unless they converted to using DLNA CVP-2 for streaming instead. Then they could do the UI in HTML5 and the dingoe wouldn't need much orocessing power at all.

They would probably also need to include an ethernet port for people who use ethernet rather than MoCA. I suppose they could make 2 different versions, 1 for MoCA and 1 for ethernet. But honestly I'd rather just have a box that would do either in case my network situation ever changes, but there probably wouldn't be enough room on a dongle to support both. I also like having the option of using component over HDMI on the mini, which would surely go away on any sort of dongle device.

Really, all they need to do is make a Mini that uses RF, then the people who don't like seeing cables and a box can just mount the Mini behind the TV out of sight.

Even with RF remote it would still need power, so there would be a power cord hanging from the back of your TV. The beauty of something like the Chromecast is that it's USB powered so it can get power from the USB ports right on the back of your TV. I also assume that something small like that would be significantly cheaper to make so maybe they could sell it for $40-$50 instead of $100.

Even with RF remote it would still need power, so there would be a power cord hanging from the back of your TV. The beauty of something like the Chromecast is that it's USB powered so it can get power from the USB ports right on the back of your TV.

It doesn't have to be a dongle to be powered by a USB port. They could make a Mini that receives its power through a USB port if they wanted to.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan203

I also assume that something small like that would be significantly cheaper to make so maybe they could sell it for $40-$50 instead of $100.

You can call up TiVo right now and they will sell you a Mini for $50 if you buy lifetime service on it.

You would rather it be perfectly square? That sounds boring to me. I think the angled sides give it more style. If you want to see what an ugly set-top box looks like, you should have seen my old TWC cable box. Now those things are UGLY.

Yes. It's one of the uglier devices that I have.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan203

How long before they can cram it into a dongle that just hangs off the back of your TV like a ChromeCast?

I'm surprised they aren't doing that now to clear out their inventory of Premieres.

This was back when they were first released. They eliminated lifetime and went to a model where you got a "free" Premiere unit when you committed to 2 years at $20/mo. They were trying to go for the cellphone model. But it didn't work so they brought back lifetime, lowered monthly to $15/mo and started charging $130 for the unit.

I don't see them cramming an entire Mini into an HDMI dongle. It's essentially a Premiere without a hard drive or tuners. Shrinking such a system down that small would be very expensive. There's just not a whole lot of a market for something like that. Best you could expect is some kind of Roku-like client that runs an app that serves as a Stream client.

That's why I mentioned DLNA CVP-2. It's a new version of the DLNA spec that includes CableLabs approved encryption and an HTML5 based remote UI. If they implemented that in the TiVo software then any DLNA CVP-2 capable device could essentially be a Mini.

Or they could just make a less-ugly Mini. Or maybe an RVU server that can link to a Roamio over Ethernet and pipe out a bunch of RVU streams... Or a Roku App to go with TiVo Stream... Or just a less-ugly Mini...